My sister is getting married in June of this year. I am her older sister. She’s getting married in a Greek Orthodox Church (our religion), and so the tradition is to have a Koumbara. Now, growing up it was always a dream of mine that we would be each others’ Koumbaras, and I just always assumed we would. When she got engaged, she was torn on whether to ask me or our cousin. So what she did was create “two”: an American Maid of Honor and the traditional Koumbara. I was asked to be MOH, and have since done all of that work. It hurt me deeply that she took that approach, but I worked through it on my own because I didn’t want to bring any of that emotional baggage to her during her wedding. My sister and I grew very close during this time as I took on the MOH responsibilities, and I was just so happy to see that we were getting to have the sort of close relationship I always hoped for.

But after a couple months, our cousin was barely involving herself with my sister’s wedding planning. My sister would ask her to be available for a call, they would agree, and then my cousin would never call. This went on for a couple months, and my sister gave her many chances to change her approach. Eventually my sister decided that wasn’t “right”, so she told our cousin she wanted to change her Koumbara. So she came to me two months ago and asked me. I was over the moon, expressed so much gratitude and reaffirmed to her how much the role meant to me — both emotionally and spiritually.

Almost weekly for these two months, my sister has called me and expressed how guilty she feels — not because she second guessed her decision, but because our cousin was being passive aggressive. I would try my best to support her, and sat on hour long calls trying to emotionally support her while being as unbiased as I could. I tried to remind her of why she made the choice, and how many chances she had given our cousin. Well, two months later and our cousin asks to speak to my sister. During this call, she finally apologizes and makes some excuses about how busy she’s been and how she just wasn’t in a good headspace. During the same call, my sister gives the Koumbara back to her. I was not given a heads up, even though I now find out she had the time to call both our parents and let them know she was debating doing it on that call.

I’m extremely torn. When she first went the route of not making me the true Koumbara, it hurt. But I worked through it (took a lot out of me emotionally, but I told myself that’s the right thing to do for my sister). Now, this feels so much more painful and personal. The fact I wasn’t even given a heads up, or that when she told me she did it, she took such a passive approach to telling me (just called me giving me a “recap” of the phone call, then bluntly stating that she gave it back… and asked me “so what do you think?”). I feel cornered, like I can’t feel the full extent of my emotions, and that I’m not allowed to be seriously impacted by her behavior. It isn’t even the fact of “going back” on it (yes, that itself would have hurt a ton and felt super disappointing), but the fact she didn’t even give me a chance or a heads up — despite giving our cousin originally three months of chances.

At this point, I feel grossed out by my sister, and I’m struggling to know what the “right” thing to do is. Part of me wants to remove myself from the whole “maid of honor” role because I don’t feel it really ever mattered, and beyond that I just feel really disturbed by this and am questioning so much about my sister and the way she views / treats me. But I also can’t imagine being someone who “ruins” her wedding — so I’m trying to find a balance where I am respecting myself and my boundaries / feelings, while reminding myself this is her wedding and it’s about her, not me or this role / title. Again, it isn’t so much about “now it’s taken back from me”, but the approach she took, and how careless she’s been about it. She showed so much guilt and remorse over taking it from our cousin, despite our cousin’s actions being at the root of her decision. And I wasn’t shown the same “guilt” or concern. She seems to be completely fine and almost like there’s zero weight on her over doing this to me. Please help me understand what to make of my feelings because I don’t want to ruin my sister’s wedding, but I am just realizing how little my sister has really thought of me across our adult lives, and this just felt so representative of how she’s treated me for years.